Jules is meant to be bent not broken

When I first started blogging, I made myself make several promises. (1) Never even under pain of death or prospect of marriage arrange to meet with a fellow blogger (2)Don't blog about work (3) Don't blog about Tony (4)Don't blog about music, art or literature.

There seemed very good reasons for these 'rules'. (Sorry Kaz, I know I said that there should be no rules in Blogosphere!) Firstly, I've encountered some very strange people in my life and several of them have told me that I let out a lot of myself in email. I have had several good reasons to be very worried and mightily relieved. Secondly, I might end up breaching some obscure work policy document, leak some "price-sensitive" information, get severely reprimanded and lose my job. Thirdly, when it comes to (the then) domestic bliss, one shouldn't tempt fate. Fourthly, while you know what you like, Paige, when it comes to music, literature or art, you'll never be asked to guest on 'The View'. (Recognising the limits to ones intellectual capacity is an important and life-affirming realisation!).

Now that I've lost the job and acquired an Ex-, I find myself compelled to enter the realm of the music critic. Now I don't want to end up like one of those smug Irish Times critics who feted The Thrills until people started to notice them and then began to be very critical. BTW, this seems to be a common problem with the otherwise excellent newspaper coverage. (Note to 'The Ticket' crew : Sometimes you can try too hard to be cool.)

It has come to my attention that there is someone in this God-created planet who has not heard about Aslan. The Blankpaige will endeavour to rectify this forth with.

But in the meantime, would any of you Bloggers like to go for a drink?
Paige

(P.S. The post title has just come to me. I think that this might be the first inspirational line in my new novella about a young Spanish student and would-be poet who comes to Dublin to learn English. Away from the bosom of his loving family, Jules falls in with a mean-spirited cabal who are an unruly and disruptive influence. In addition to stealing all his life savings, this gang forces Jules to embark on a journey of self discovery in which our hero confronts his sexuality. After a series of painful although at times hilarious (in the Fiona Looney sense of the word) misunderstandings, Jules flees back to the small farm on the outskirts of Santiago de Compostella (as you can see the scenario has been extensively researched). As he surveys what remains of his savings, he realises that he is gay and that Dublin is awash with thieving charlatans. While completely at ease with his newly discovered sexuality, Jules hasn't enough funds to publish his poetry collection. Grimly he concludes that Jules is meant to be bent not broken.

(Note to would-be publishers. I have stopped opening letters of offer that contain advances of less than $20,000.)

(Note to RTE. I will not sell the story rights to a production company that has any association with Miriam O'Callaghan and unless Cillian Murphy is cast as Jules.)

I wonder did Joyce or Beckett have the same problem as me - i.e. that they couldn't really type and instead of correcting Jules as Rules concocted a whole novella to explain away what a backspace would have avoided?